"Hello Dad. It’s about noon. You were sleepier. But it’s okay. I opened the restaurant and cooked a couple of meals too.”

“Noon! But you’ve got to go in half an hour! Have you done your packing?”

“It’s okay Dad. Magdalena can go on her own and we can meet up in San Jose tomorrow.”

“Are you crazy? Is that the way you’re going to treat your girl on the very first day of your new life? I thought you were smart!”

He came in and stood over his father’s bed. “Dad, I lied. It’s past noon. Magdalena’s already gone. But I’ll be on the train tomorrow. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’ll find her? What’s going on, Harvey?”

He sat down by the bed. “Well, the truth is, I don’t know what’s going on either. I sat on the veranda with my suitcase and... Well, I wanted to go, but I just couldn’t seem to take the first step. I couldn’t get myself to walk to that station. Isn’t that strange?”

“So you just couldn’t go,” the stranger probed, “some kind of phobia?”

“Guess so. I did go eventually though. Not the next day, but the day after that. My Dad was a lot better that day. I took the train to San Jose and I went to the college Magdalena and me were supposed to be joining. I thought I could ask at the college office, what courses she had signed up for. But they wouldn’t tell me anything. Said it was all confidential. I said I was her boyfriend, but they just laughed at me. So I left. I hung around the college for a couple of days, thought maybe I would see her, but it was a big place...”

“So you never found her again?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think she wanted to be found. I suppose I could have tried harder, but on the third day I phoned home. Got through to Sam instead of my Dad. I knew there was something wrong, but Sam wouldn’t tell me and then I heard about the drowning.”

For a couple of minutes neither of them spoke.

“Hell of a thing, to lose your dad like that.”

“Worst part was, he’d been so mad at me. He called me a fool for the way I’d treated Magdalena. I guess he was right. But I wanted to be with her here, where we both belonged.”

“Your father was a frightened man, Harvey. Seems to me you might have picked up some of that fear, some way.”

Harvey’s eyes bored into the stranger’s face. “Why? Why was he so scared?”

The stranger met his eyes and thought for a long time. “You can’t blame other people for your own mistakes. You could have gone with Magdalena. Those things were your decisions. Don’t try to blame your dad for things you did.”

Harvey’s eyes narrowed. I think you’re saying don’t blame you. Is that right? Was it you that made my Dad the way he was?”

The shot in the dark hit home. The old man’s coldness seemed to melt a little and he finally began to talk. “Your father was mixed up with some pretty unsavoury guys in Chicago. He picked the wrong girlfriend – daughter of one of the big crime families. They ran off together and by the time the family caught up with them... they'd had you.”

Harvey stared at him...

“The hand... was the punishment for running away with her. They took her home, told your dad he had twenty–four hours to disappear. You were left with him. If you hadn’t have been around they’d just have shot him.”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Harvey whispered, “It was you who cut off my father’s hand.”

The long pause told Harvey he was right.

“It was a long time ago. We were all crazy back then. Walter didn’t deserve what happened to him. He wasn’t a bad guy. He thought we didn’t know where he’d run to. Old Corvano liked to think of Walter down here, scared as hell. But it’s over now. Corvano’s dead. I wanted to come down and tell Walter.”

Harvey remained rigid and expressionless in his chair.

“I came here to tell Walter that the Corvano family seeks no more retribution. And maybe... to ask him to forgive me?”

Still Harvey said nothing.

“Maybe not so stupid, ‘because it seems to me you’ve let it seep into you as well. You could go up to Chicago now, go and see your mother if you wanted to. I’m sure she’d be happy to see you. She’s still alive, and you’ve got brothers. You don’t need to rot in this place, Harvey.”

Harvey got up and very quietly started to stow the high–back stool.

“Come back with me, Harvey. Let me make some of it up to the old man.”

“I think it’s time you left,” said Harvey. The stranger hesitated for a few moments and was gone. Harvey remained with his back to the door until he heard the entry of another customer and turned around to greet him.

“Hi, Harvey. Am I too late for your chicken fried rice?”

“Too late?” Harvey repeated the words. After a few seconds his expression changed to one of polite civility.

“Of course not.

Happy to serve you like always.”